-I struggle to understand how this would work with expansions etc, as I imagine this would dilute down the difficulty of attainment.

-In new expansions your class would remain this new class.

-The journey to achieve this class would be long and arduous, it will involve vast amounts of travelling both in air and under water.

-Quest Items required to complete this quest would be difficult to attain, the spawns may be random in certain high danger areas or from difficult raid bosses.

-A high/maximum level of faction would be required to start the quest.

This is most of the information I have off the top of my head for this concept, however just to give an example of this in which I feel like it was successful was in Star Wars Galaxies with the "Jedi" class.

This hero class was extremely hard to attain and didn't just take a lot of effort and resources but also a lot of time. This was due to the fact your charatcer would need to become force sensitive enough to even start work on the quest/path.

I always remember seeing a Jedi in SWG and being in absolute awe. Even the lightsaber had to be crafted by you and that wasn't easy either. This was only the start of your new journey as all your skills reset to this new Jedi only table, I apologise if anyone with more knowledge of this class disprove a few things I've said; it's just the feelings inspired by this was of epic proportions and would love a game where this concept is replicated.

The point I really want to get across is that these classes would not be stronger, they would just have a different approach to the game if not more specialised in a certain way.

It seems to me that EQ captured some of this with the class names changing as different levels were reached i.e:

Cleric > Vicar > Templar > High Priest

I would like it to be taken further.

I suppose I'm suggesting in regards to the above example, what if we remove the initial two (Viar & Tempar) and only have "High Priest" @ Max level; but make it difficult to attain and have it bring new found skills/abilities/utility?

I totally get what your saying... That feeling of being in awe when seeing some high level character with really awesome gear or something. I like the idea of classes evolving when completing some significant questline that could take years...What I think could be cool is something like a relic weapon that takes an insane amount of time/effort to achieve.... Once completing that questline as say a Paladin you become a "Legendary Paladin" class. Still a Paladin, but you are able to equip this relic weapon, which maybe also brings a few legendary bonuses to your skill set.

Not sure how that system would be implemented exactly but I like the idea.

I would go further and say receiving the epic weapon would only be part of this progression. Finding the weapon is just the beginning; you need to know how to use it, which would make this a check-point on the adventure to becoming "Protector" for example? Becoming the class would involve further epic quests that are just as difficult in different ways.

I think with this concept, the quest would need to be a combinration of difficult/time consuming/frustrating/dangerous/punishing. What this means is that players can play the game normally without pursuing this path and absolutely not be losing out. However, when they see someone who has went to these lengths and achieved the "impossible" it will stir up an epic feeling of awe and create real life heroes in the game.

I am in favor of the idea of these super long/difficult/ etc.. progression system.

Maybe they could somehow integrate the prodigy system into this progression? I know some people might be against this but what if everytime you "reset" and started back to level 1, it took a considerably more exp to reach each level? So each time you reset you have kinda evolved to the next tier of that class. The differences probably could not be so much that your now OP compared to a normal class... just minor differences that the die hard completionists(like me) would love to work towards.

I must say I'm not in favor of the reset button when you reach max level, I don't think it works on these kind of games as I think the goal is to reach a point where you don't have to gain xp anymore and begin focusing on other things.

I also think the levelling system would lose it's value and may feel a bit pointless as you never know when you're done.

I see where you are coming from. I do like the idea of getting to the maximum level and then having alternate ways to progress that do not require just simply levling. Maybe some sort of merits system could be cool.

This did occur in everquest. They did this by giving higher tiered items unique looks (aka warriors light sabers) they did inspire awe (except for wizzie 1hb and sprinkler for clerics). That sprinkler inspired no one with its limpy looking morning star graphic lol. Initial armor like bronze armor or leather had little to no defining details. As you got more advanced items they did have more detail and changed apperance. It was one of the reasons I completed my Shadowknight epic because it was SOO damn cool. I did have to work faction up because I was a glutton for punishment. I was an iksar strictly for the racial challenge and the greenmist, and iksar only shadow knight weapon. Sincerely at the time was the only katana looking weapon in game. I would flip that out into my weapon just to see the reaction in newbie zones. Yes I was a bit shallow and needed that afirmation from time to time lol.

The devs have already talked a bit about having a 10 yr expansion arc planned. They felt this was needed to help address power creep from one expansion to the next. They understand it excists and that older content becomes trivial because of it. Their vision is to have every zone made to always be viable for use and exploration from one expansion to the next. Most of these devs, if not all, have large resumes from prior games. In this regards they expressed the disappointment of zones being abandon as newer content was released.

Although for my 2 cents.. I would rather them focus on balanced mechanics... pathing, itemization, and group encounters or improvement of raid encounters then spend time on Vanity titels. Well except for tradeskill titels.. ( i enjoyed being master.. well All of my toons were masters in every tradeskill) so that was a point of pride. They have even hinted that in game voice chat may not excist because why spend the time implimenting it.. with all the already great alterntives with third party software.

They have even hinted that in game voice chat may not excist because why spend the time implimenting it.. with all the already great alterntives with third party software.

I dont mind this at all because I have never been too interested in voice chat in MMOs. Idk why... maybe it's becausae I just like to get lost in the game world and sort of imagine for myself what the other adventures sound like etc.. I always find voice chat to break my immersion in an MMO. Also, my wife tolerates my playing video games but when it's late at night I try to be respectful of my noise level... I mostly play at night.

I really hope voicechat does not become something that groups deem to be mandatory... Some partys I have played with the last couple years, in other MMOs, have actually threatened to boot me if I didnt join their discord. The comical thing about it is after joining the discord there was not much discussion that was actually relevant to the content we were doing, mostly overbearing laughter and bad jokes.

However, I'm not too worried about it because Pantheon's oldschool, slower paced, combat should make text chat acceptable for most content.

The devs have already talked a bit about having a 10 yr expansion arc planned. They felt this was needed to help address power creep from one expansion to the next. They understand it excists and that older content becomes trivial because of it. Their vision is to have every zone made to always be viable for use and exploration from one expansion to the next. Most of these devs, if not all, have large resumes from prior games. In this regards they expressed the disappointment of zones being abandon as newer content was released.

This is the kind of thing that really excites me. I love when a game can keep the entire world relevant, even after an expansion! :)